Call centre employee stole gift card data; had money transferred to his own account
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A 26-year-old software engineer has been arrested for allegedly stealing gift card data from American nationals and draining them off over Rs. 70 lakh. The accused, identified as Yusuf Ansari, was working in an Andheri-based call centre outsourced for customer service on payments against gift cards bought by US citizens.
The fraud came to light after the call centre did not receive any payments in their bank account. The matter was then reported to the Amboli police. Following investigations it was revealed that Ansari, who had been working with the call centre for the past one month, had been collecting the details of all rechargeable gift cards — a prepaid voucher that can be used as an alternative to cash for purchases. Customers in the United States, who bought these cards, did not use them immediately. This enabled Ansari to collect the data, before passing on the details to his associates, who immediately siphoned off the cash.
According to the police, his associates who work from outside the country would then deposit Ansari’s share of the spoils in his personal bank account. "While investigating the matter, we found that Ansari had excess amount of cash in his personal bank account when compared to his monthly salary. Further investigations revealed that since the past one month there had been frequent cash deposits in his account. He was then detained on suspicion and later arrested," a police official with Amboli police station said.
According to the official, Ansari had over Rs. 40 lakh in his account and he could not give a satisfactory reply as to how he had acquired such large sums of money. Ansari has been booked under sections 420 and 406 of the IPC for cheating.
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